


Funeral Oranges

by odinstark



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ajan Kloss, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Death, Crossing Parallels, Crying, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Omniscient, Poetry, Speeches, Symbolism, Tags Contain Spoilers, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22590412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/odinstark/pseuds/odinstark
Summary: tags contain spoilers!!!inspired by funeral blues by w h auden.loss is consuming and widespread.
Relationships: BB-8 & Poe Dameron, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron & Black Squadron, Poe Dameron & Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Funeral Oranges

A large crowd formed at the base of a particularly leafy tree, the trunk twice thicker than your average fighter ship and so tall it scraped the sky. The leaves started deep green and bled out into yellows, oranges and red at the edges, and were shaped like tear drops. Every member of the gathering wore dark clothing, black trousers, black shirts, except for two small groups. One, a group of four wore orange flight suits, neat and orderly and clean, no trace of oil, grease, blood or ash anywhere, helmets neatly polished and tucked under their arms. A spherical droid, wiped so every inch of grime was cleared off, hovered at their feet, their head bowed.

  
The second group, consisted of two people. One, a woman in cloth robes of an off-white colour, the hood pulled up, shadowing her face, obscuring her tears. Leather straps wrapped around the greying, long sleeved under shirt she wore, the same colour as the chestnut coloured boots that rhythmically scraped at the dirt forest floor under her feet. The second, was a man, wearing brown trousers with a red trim up the seam at the sides. A cream coloured shirt was buttoned up neatly to his throat, contrasting his dark skin that glowed under the late evening sky. Pink and orange sunlight bounced off the leather jacket that he wore, the staples that ran up the spine were smooth, as though they were caressed repeatedly for a long period of time, not a hint of a scratch anywhere.

  
As though everyone gathered were of a hive mind, they sat down on stools and overturned boxes as the man with the leather jacket walked to the centre of the temporary stage, a couple of wooden planks nailed together, supported by three stout tree logs. He needed no microphone, no amplifier. Even if his grief consumed his strong voice, made it shaking, quiet, muffled, the crowd would hear him anyway, none of them breathed a word. Even the forest was quiet, like all the animals of the jungle moon had taken a vow of silence.

  
But it didn’t.

  
It carried over the crowd, throughout the clearing, back to the empty camp, up the trees, into the sky, his words bounced off of the stars and saddened moons, coloured planets, brought galaxies closer together. His words were both the needle and the thread of the story.

  
He spoke of a man, who did daring deeds, was a man who put others before himself, was a massive asshole, but a well meaning one, a man who was kind, who shared food and clothes and living space and love. Who named a man with nothing to his designation, who gave birthdays to people who barely had a childhood. Who brought back gifts for children and adults alike, just to see them smile. Who wore his own smile as easily as he breathed and how it was always genuine, how he had a certain smile for everyone and everything. How it was like to wake up the early hours of the morning to see him also unable to sleep and how you could just walk the planet together because he was there with you and you just could. A man who you loved, who he loved, for his smile and his curls and his annoying habit of appearing at the best and worst times, neither really, just unexpectedly. A man who said told you, told him, that he loved him more times than he can count, told him first under a rainbow shone in the sky, after a week of rain, the ground smelling fresh and alive. 

  
“I don’t have enough words to describe Poe and I don’t have enough time even if I did. I don’t even have enough energy to process that he’s gone, gone...to somewhere you can’t come back from and I can never see him again.”

  
A silver chain hung from his fingers, with an engraved ring swinging in the gentle breeze, capturing the last of the yellow glow as the sun sunk of the horizon, as though it could store it for later, the final gift from its now dead previous owner.

  
It was two weeks ago. A mission gone wrong, terribly wrong. Five ships went in, four came out. The fifth, the first, the One, a fireball against a snowy landscape, blackened metal protruding from the ground like saplings, red flames acting as budding leaves.

  
“I’m going to steal the words of a man who knew what it felt like to lose someone who wasn’t just your other half, not just your entire world, but someone who touched the lives of hundreds, thousands, someone who deserves the galaxy, but is too humble, too gone to receive it, accept it.”

  
The four ships cried out in agony as the watched bloody flames engulf the wreckage, so hot the fire not only melted the snow surrounding it but consumed it, evaporated it until it was just steam travelling up into the atmosphere.

  
_“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,_

  
_Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,_

  
_Silence the pianos and with muffled drum_

  
_Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.”_

  
Silence came next, the racket of the quiet screamed over the engines, who trailed behind smoke of damaged engines, that didn’t look so bad now, compared the devouring bonfire below, eating away at both bone and metal skeletons alike.

  
_“Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead_

  
_Scribbling on the sky the message ‘He is Dead’._

  
_Put crepe bows round the necks of the public doves,_

  
_Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.”_

  
Snow fell quickly as they hovered around the area, none brave enough to look at remains sizzling on the ground, building up on the wings of the fighters, all too busy using their leather flying gloves as tissues to wipe away grief stricken tears; and soon the blizzard smothered enough oxygen to choke the fire out.

  
_“He was my North, my South, my East and West,_

  
_My working week and my Sunday rest,_

  
_My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;_

  
_I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.”_

  
Reporting fatalities is hard enough, reporting the death of a General is even harder. But to complete a flight in complete silence as a man cried over the coms, asking, pleading for an explanation, is torturous. To look a man in the face, in the eyes and tell him, that the man he loves so dearly, is eternally one with two tons of steel and a mountain of snow, should be considered criminal.

  
_“The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,_

  
_Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,_

  
_Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;_

  
_For nothing now can ever come to any good.”_

  
Two weeks without the sky, the day, the sun, the night, and the stars. Without his sky, his day and sun, his night and stars. Two weeks of grey ceilings, grey floors, grey blankets, grey water and grey food. A rainbow room now monochrome, a colourful man now dull. A full bed now empty. An alive man, now dead.

  
Tears ran in rivers, not just in the speakers eyes, not just down his face. The crowd wallowed in a collective grief, and the silence was broken. A melodic cacophony of wails and howls and shushing reassuring voices, which carried throughout the crowd, bounced in the clearing, travelled back to the no longer empty camp, up the trees, into the sky, their keening bounced off of the stars and saddened moons, coloured planets, brought galaxies closer together.

  
A figure emerged from the treeline. Bloody. Ashy. Grimy. Tired. He's a dead man, a dead man.


End file.
